Florida Peanut Germplasm Tour
A group of International PMIL Collaborators from Africa and Haiti were joined by partners from the USA, during 2 weeks in July of 2015, to tour the USDA core germplasm collection planted at the University of Florida’s Plant Science Research and Education Unit in Citra, Florida USA. Most of the partners then traveled to Charleston, South Carolina to attend the annual meeting of the American Peanut Research and Education Society.
July 8-10th, Greg Macdonald hosted the PMIL Collaborators on a tour of UFL Peanut Fields and organized a visit to a local peanut farmer, Andy Robinson’s, peanut fields and a visit to a local peanut processing facility nearby.
The visit to the UF Research Plots was featured in several articles including Growing Georgia.
The articles highlighted the work of Greg MacDonald and Noelle Barkley to chronicle, research and maintain the over 1,000 varieties of peanuts planted at the plot.
Greg Macdonald wrote about the farm visits in a recent feature on Field Notes.
PMIL attendees at the Florida tour included from Burkina Faso: Phillippe Sankara; Ghana: Mumuni Abdulai, Nicholas Denwar, Israel Dzomeku, Moses Mochia, Esther Akoto, Maxwell Lamptey; Haiti: Jean Philip Dorzin, Vanessa Fillippini, William Sheard; Malawi: Justus Chintu; Mozambique: Amade Muitia; Senegal: Issa Faye; Uganda: David Okello; Zambia: Lutangu Makweti; and USA: Mark Burrow, Mike Deom, Dave Hoisington, Naveen Puppala, Jamie Rhoads, Jinru Chen.
APRES Meeting
Following the Florida tour, many of the participants traveled to the annual APRES meeting in Charleston, South Carolina. International PMIL collaborators participated in the poster session and gave many presentations on their research projects.
Preceding the formal events, on Monday July 13th, Tom Whittaker conducted a half-day workshop on “Aflatoxin Variance in Sampling” and discussed how to properly design sampling protocols to best estimate aflatoxin concentrations. Tom’s presentations and some key publications are available on the PMIL website.
The group also visited the USDA Vegetable Lab and Clemson University Research Farm just outside of Charleston.
Of note, PMIL Collaborator Bob Kemerait was named APRES Fellow, the most prestigious award given by APRES. Also, Corley Holbrook was appointed President-elect of APRES, and will serve starting in July 2016. Tom Stalker (NCSU) took over as President for next year from Naveen Puppala.
While some of the colleagues returned home, a few are continuing on to visit additional institutes in the US before returning home in one to two weeks time.
**Presentations and Posters from PMIL’s International researchers included:
• “Effects of Herbicide and Fungicide Applications on Leaf Spot Diseases and Peanut Yield in Ghana.” M. Abudulai
• “Aflatoxin Assessment in Peanut in the PMIL Value Chain: Preliminary Findings,” W. Appaw (presented by David Jordan)
• “Release of Four Virginia and Three Spanish Groundnut Genotypes in Malawi,” J. Chintu
• “Breeding Adapted and High-Yielding Peanuts with Enhanced Market Qualities,” N. Denwar
• “Pest Management Strategies in Peanut in Northern Ghana,” I. Dzomeka.
• “Historical Contribution of the Peanut CRSP and FTFPMIL to Peanut Growers in Ghana,” M.B. Mochiah
• “Effects of Planting Date on Yield of Five Peanut Varieties in Northern Mozambique,” A.M. Muitia
• “Overview of Groundnut Research in Zambia,” L. Makweti.
• “Regeneration Procedure for Three Arachis hypogea L. Botanicals in Uganda through Embryogenesis,” D.K. Okello
• “Performance of Genotypes Selected in Burkina Faso for their resistance to Leaf Spots and Drought Tolerance in the U.D. Minicore collection,” P. Sankara